Video | Study | Ways to Boost Protein | How Much Daily Protein? | How Much Early Protein? | Intermittent Fasting?

Eating sufficient protein is needed to support muscle mass and strength. When you eat it, also matters. That is according to a study involving mice and humans that compared muscle mass and strength in subjects who ate more protein for breakfast to those who ate more at dinner. This blog post shares the results and practical ways to add protein to your day. 

Morning Protein for More Muscle [Video]

In this video, you’ll learn…

• Details about the 2021 study’s process and its results
• Examples of high protein, low-carb foods to eat that boost morning protein.
• How to practice intermittent fasting with this method.

The Study

As a society, protein intake is skewed toward dinner rather than breakfast. 

A study published in 2021 wanted to determine whether protein distribution over a day affects muscle growth (1).

Mouse Subjects

The investigators fed mice two meals a day in three patterns of distribution: 

• High protein at breakfast and low protein at dinner
• Equal portions of protein at both meals
• Low protein at breakfast and high protein at dinner

They then performed muscle overloading to stress the mouse muscles, similar to how weight lifting stresses our muscles.

All of the mice gained muscle mass due to the exercise. However, the mice that ate a high-protein breakfast had the most gains in muscle mass and rate of growth of the three groups. (As a note of interest, this same effect was seen in mice fed supplemental Branched-Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs) in the morning.)

To see if this was a fluke or if the morning feeding really mattered, the research team also tested mice that had been altered in a way that disrupted their normal circadian rhythm – the internal clock that keeps your wake/sleep cycle and metabolism on track.

These “Clock” mice do not experience normal day/night variations in their metabolism. As a result, they did not get the enhanced muscle benefits of breakfast protein. That fact supported the original finding that the gains were related to circadian rhythm.

Great! Except this is the result the mice got. You’re probably wondering about humans, and so was the research team. 

Human Subjects

The researchers recruited 60 older women and asked about their daily protein consumption. All of the women had similar activity levels and ate about the same amount of protein throughout the day, but not at the same time of day. The researchers were able to split the women into two groups: early protein consumers and late protein consumers. 

They found that the women who consumed protein earlier in the day had moderately more muscle mass and significantly better grip strength and skeletal muscle index (SMI) than late protein eaters. 

Skeletal muscle index is a measure of body composition that can detect the loss of muscle or strength, which is something you want to prevent at any age but is particularly important for this group of older women. 

Ways to Boost Morning Protein

Getting protein into your body early in the day is beneficial. How do you do that? 

Protein powder is a quick and easy source, as are eggs, which can be eaten with breakfast meats like sausage. Dairy foods like hard cheese and cottage cheese are easy to work into breakfast and provide good amounts of protein, as does full-fat yogurt, to which you can add nuts or seeds for an even higher protein intake. No-sugar-added nut butters also provide protein, but they are calorie-dense and easy to overeat, so keep that in mind if weight control is your goal. 

I just provided a list of high-protein breakfast foods that can be worked into a low-carb lifestyle. If you follow my blog, you know that I support low-carb eating. For completeness, there are foods that contain protein and carbs that work at breakfast time. They include milk, quinoa, oatmeal, and beans. 

How Much Protein During the Day? 

The study shows that eating more protein in the morning benefits muscle mass and strength. But what does “more” mean? 

To answer that, we must first understand how much protein your body needs. 

Every age group has different protein requirements, and those requirements increase with activity level, disease processes, and other factors. In addition, there are many differing opinions on what level is best. 

The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for protein is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight (0.36 grams per pound). That is a modest amount. 

For comparison, to be included in the study, the older female participants had to consume 1 to 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, which is what they determined to be necessary for maintaining and increasing muscle mass for that demographic.

From different sources, I’ve found that for the average person, aiming for 1.0 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight is the amount to consume to maintain or gain muscle. 

I want to point out that while the animals and humans in the study had the best results when they consumed protein early in the day, all study participants benefitted from getting adequate protein. I say this because I don’t want you to feel discouraged if you haven’t been eating protein in the morning, it doesn’t fit your schedule, or you like fasting in the mornings. If sufficient protein is coming in daily, you are benefiting. 

With that said, if you want to work toward optimization, here is what to aim for regarding early protein intake and how to handle intermittent fasting. 

How Much Early Protein? 

The women in the study averaged 78 grams of protein per day. The early protein eaters averaged around 29 grams at breakfast, 26 at lunch, and 22 at dinner. 

Basing a recommendation on that information and making it as practical as possible for modern life, here is the goal for taking in protein. Aim to consume 70% of your daily protein by your mid-day meal, with dinner making up the remaining 30%. 

Example

Here is an example to give you an idea of how to structure your protein intake throughout the day. You can eat an omelet made of three eggs and two ounces of sausage for breakfast (29g of protein). Top a salad with three ounces of chicken (26g) for lunch. For dinner, you could have spaghetti squash with low-carb sauce and meatballs (22g). 

Note that you do not have to make dinner a low-protein meal. You can eat meat or other protein sources at dinnertime. The objective is to ensure that you are also getting protein early, which is what many of us do not do regularly. 

Can I Practice Intermittent Fasting? 

But what if you are not a breakfast eater? In other words, you practice intermittent fasting and find that fasting in the morning works best for you. That’s okay as long as you are getting protein early in the day. In other words, morning protein does not have to be consumed immediately after waking up.

To provide an example, I consume my morning protein three hours after waking up. I typically get up at 6 AM, have coffee and a short walk with my husband, and then spend a couple of hours on my computer before exercising, which is when I have my pre-workout protein. 

I also practice early Time-Restricted Eating (eTRE), meaning that my eating window, when I consume calories, occurs in the first part of the day. I break my fast with a 9 AM protein shake and finish dinner by 5 PM. That gives me the overnight hours to fast.

Final Thought

One last point: this strategy is a way of optimizing your body composition. You can’t optimize until you’ve mastered the basics. 

If your biggest obstacle to better health right now is weight or blood sugar regulation, tuck this concept of protein timing in the back of your head and incorporate it once the weight is off and your overall health is restored. It will be waiting here for you when you are ready to optimize your results.

Thank you for reading and have a great week!

Reference: 

(1) Aoyama, Shinya, et al. “Distribution of dietary protein intake in daily meals influences skeletal muscle hypertrophy via the muscle clock.” Cell reports 36.1 (2021).

About the Author

Becky Gillaspy, DC, is the author of The Intermittent Fasting Guide and Cookbook and Zero Sugar / One Month. She graduated Summa Cum Laude with research honors from Palmer College of Chiropractic in 1991.